WHERE THE BOYS ARE IN SUMMER '93

John McCarronCHICAGO TRIBUNE

It's an interesting topic, this downsizing of corporate America. I've written a column or two about it. Lots of writers have.

The latest wrinkle is the "jobless recovery." Many of the big companies are turning profits again. But they're coming back with fewer employees, especially middle managers, so lots of white-collars who didn't see it coming are lining up at unemployment offices, clipping want ads and mailing out resumes.

But for me, personally, it was just another issue like Clinton's budget or Yeltsin's troubles . . . until a couple weeks ago.

I've been organizing an informal reunion of high school buddies. We try to get together every other summer. We go to a Cubs game, play softball and adjourn to a backyard barbecue to catch up on each other's families and careers. It's my year to be host.

So I've been on the phone lately with old friends. They're all white-collar types, college-educated men in their mid-40s. By now they have houses bigger than the ones they grew up in and teenagers of their own getting ready for college.

And guess what?

One just was laid off by a major airline after 18 years of loyal service. Another is looking for a job after managing stores, for almost as long, for a major department-store chain. A third has caught on with a small surgical supplier after getting squeezed out by one of the big pharmaceutical houses. A fourth is hanging on by his fingernails at IBM but isn't so sure he'll survive the next wave of layoffs.

So it's not just another interesting topic anymore. It's us, The Boys, as our parents used to call us. In high school we were the "goody-goodies," the ones who played by the rules. We made the honor roll every semester and got named to the National Honor Society. We stayed after school to practice sports or edit the school newspaper. We worked jobs on weekends and over summer vacations to save for the college education most of our parents never had.

In other words, we walked the straight and narrow. And eventually it paid off. In the '70s, on the strength of educational backgrounds and personal comportment, we were hired by some of America's largest corporations. We worked long hours, got promoted and started families-all in the unshakable confidence that we, the company and us, would continue to provide.

Then the world changed.

It began in the '80s when most of us were too busy to notice, what with late hours at the office and Indian Princess meetings on weekends.

Our annual raises kept getting smaller, even though the bosses said we were doing fine. Turned out most of our raises were being eaten up by health-insurance premiums, which were going through the roof. All the while our workload and responsibilities kept increasing, especially after the hiring freezes and early retirements began.

But that was OK. By the mid-80s we understood that people like us probably couldn't get hired right out of college as we had 15 years before. We're white males, and our companies have been playing catchup, hiring mostly women and minorities. We figured we were lucky to get onboard before they pulled up the ladder. Or so we thought.

Next came the gulf war, the 1990-91 recession and, seemingly overnight, a revolution in the way corporate America does business.

The big change had been building for years, but it took a recession to trigger the consequences. Corporate America began laying off workers-especially white-collar workers-at the rate of 2,000 every working day. And the mass layoffs continue, no matter what Senate Republicans or the editorial writers at The Wall Street Journal would have you believe about a recovery.

Not that this is some kind of Reagan-Bush political plot. Their "hands-off" approach didn't help, but the causes of the big change run deeper than party politics.

They include the arrival of price-cutting, high-quality foreign competition and technologies such as personal computers that do the work of roomfuls of clerks. They include the need to pay down huge debts rung up during the go-go years by the government, the corporate sector and consumers. They include the end of Cold War arms procurement and the lack of a coherent national strategy-only now being contemplated-to retool and re-educate for the future.

We can only hope the great American job engine gets back on track. But one lubricant of that machine we're not likely to see again. It's faith, faith in a lifelong bond between loyal companies and loyal employees.

No doubt the beer will taste as good this summer and the softball razzing will be as funny. But I'd guess The Boys won't be taking as much for granted this time.